SLEEPY HOLLOW at Comic-Con: Live-Blog

SLEEPY HOLLOW is returning to Comic-Con, and starting at 5:45 PM PT, I’ll be live-blogging what goes down at the panel.

Check out the official description of the panel, and then check back in a bit for live updates!

“Executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Fringe, Spider Man 2), Len Wiseman (Underworld, Total Recall), Mark Goffman, and Heather Kadin return to Comic-Con with the breakout show of the year, featuring an exclusive look at the highly-anticipated second season followed by a fan Q&A featuring cast members Tom Mison, Nicole Beharie, John Noble, Orlando Jones, and Lyndie Greenwood!”

5:51 PM: Sizzle reel starts!

5:53 PM: Intro time! Only changes to the announced panel list are now Katia Winter is here, and Wiseman isn’t.

5:54 PM: “With the introduction of war, obviously we’re going to follow through with that,” Goffman says. But the season is also about redemption, and family.

5:56 PM: Kurtzman: “The unexpected seems to go very well ..we did as much as possible to put everyone in the worst position…whatever you think is coming isn’t coming.”

5:57 PM: “I have to get out of a box. I think Mark enjoyed putting me in a box too much,” Mison jokes. He admits he worried about getting back into the role after hiatus, but the writing helped him to just jump back into things.

5:58 PM: What new things will Ichabod do in season 2? “You learned he watched GLEE,” Mison shares. Did he enjoy it? “What do you think? OH. It’s Fox. He loved it.”

5:59 PM: Beharie teases we’ll learn more about Abbie’s backstory, and teases the tension between Abbie and Ichabod.

5:59 PM What does Jones think about Irving being in jail? “I didn’t want to be a stereotype, my mother probably didn’t enjoy it,” Jones jokes.

6:00 PM: What can they tease about the new sheriff? “We wanted to have someone who would be more of an obstacle for them…she’s not playing her very stereotypically,” Kadin teases. “She’s more of a quiet strength.”

“Oh, I don’t like her at lot,” Jones added. “It’s a horrific situation!”

6:02 PM: Katrina’s relationship with Headless is going to get complicated, Winter teases. “Everyone else sees Headless as Headless, but she can see him as Abraham,” she says. “It’s a bit of a BEAUTY AND THE BEAST situation.”

Winter also notes she knows there are a lot of Ichabbie fans out there: “I’m sure there’s lots of you out there who want me to go away!”

6:03 PM: “Every argument is going to bring them closer in the end,” Beharie says of Abbie and Jenny.

6:05 PM: After Noble gets a great reception, Winter says,”Mama’s very proud.”

6:06 PM: Where does Henry go next? “He’s had his revenge, he doesn’t need that anymore…he’s become a powerful man and plants seeds of doubts…[he becomes a lawyer and] it doesn’t take long for a smart witch like me.”

“We do need to look at the redemption aspect of it…characters aren’t interesting if there isn’t hope for them,” Noble points out. Besides, he points out he’s basically a child right now: “For me it’s just an adolescence stage!”

6:08 PM: New clip! Ichabod is playing with a pen. And without spoiling too much, an important part of Headless is being used for a very, very vital reason.

6:13 PM: On Ichabbie: “I’m not trying to be romantic,” Mison says when asked about Ichabod/Abbie. As he tries to speak into the mike, he jokes, “Could you not afford one microphone each? Cheap bastards!”

“I think people might be responding to their chemistry as working partners, that’s all,” Beharie says.

Goffman: “The two of them together, they’re this amazing couple.” But whether it’s romantic or not, they try and ground the dynamic in reality.

“Who knows whether they would have ever chosen to form a partnership…they really annoy each other sometimes,” Mison says. “A) It’s what makes it interesting, and B) it’s what some of you find spicy.”

“We did not conceive these characters to be what you have taken from this relationship,” Kadin says. “[Like Beharie has said] it’s nice to have a female character who is not defined by her feelings for a man.”

6:15 PM: Ben Franklin is coming, and his arrival was partially due to Mison telling the writers about Ben Franklin air bathing, and Goffman cracked, “We should see a lot of that.”

6:19 PM: Biggest obstacle in season 2? Kurtzman says, “We knew from the beginning of last season how we wanted it to end…we knew were going to have to pick up with some version [in season 2]….the hard part was we didn’t want to make it easy. Figuring out ways of how to move our story forward without having you feel cheated.”

6:22 PM: A fan gushes about her love of the show. It’s sweet.

6:23 PM: Will Katrina develop more powers? “Yes!” Winter says. “I’m so excited to use more magic…there’s going to be more of that.”

6:24 PM: How do they decide what historical things to work into the show? “We always try and start with something that really happened,” Goffman says.

Orci says they go through the list of the things they remember from school and try to explore them deeper.

6:26 PM: “Diversity for us is not about doing the right thing…it’s about representing our country,” Orci says. He says it’s good for everybody.

“We have a new arms dealer,” Goffman says. (Played by Matt Barr.)

Is Luke coming back? “We’ll have to see,” Goffman says.

6:27 PM: What mythical creatures do they want to see on the show? “I want to play a centaur,” Mison says. He encourages fan art.

“I’ve been lobbying to play a mermaid,” Beharie says.

“I want to be a unicorn,” Jones says. “I want to be a badass unicorn.”

“I want to see some hot vikings on the show,” Winters says.

Greenwood wants to see Caribbean ghosts.

“I want to be Tom Mison,” Noble cracks.

6:32 PM: “History is about telling us about who we are today,” Orci says of using Ichabod’s out of time experience.

6:33 PM: They give a shout out to Phil Iscove, who co-created the series.

6:35 PM: “We stand in the shadow of shows like X-FILES and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER…they were so unique because they weren’t just about, oh, there’s a demon of the week,” Kurtzman says. “I think what makes certain shows work and endure is that you invest in the relationships first…and a mythology that feels like it’s bigger than monster of the week.”

6:37 PM: “You want to cut me off at any point and save me from myself?” Jones says to Beharie when he, Beharie, and Greenwood are asked about female diversity on the show.

“It’s an honor,” Beharie says. “I don’t know if it’s a stepping stone…we know you don’t see casting like this anywhere….there are more shows [now] that are representative of what the world is. It’s lovely to be a woman that has lines and is not crazy about the guy.”

6:39 PM: Blooper reel on the DVD? “Oh, God, I hope not,” Mison says. But yes, there will be one. Kurtzman shares, “There’s a new language of swears invented by Tom Mison.”

6:40 PM: Apparently there is a crow named Shaft who acts up on set, and Mison recalls hearing after a take, “Goddammit, Shaft, you’re being an idiot.”

6:41 PM: “I’m trying to be very macho,” Mison says when he’s thanked for being a dandy.

6:42 PM: “I just did an impression of Bryan Cranston in BREAKING BAD,” Mison says of his audition tape using an American accent.

When he’s asked to show it off now, he makes a bold promise: “If you give us a season 3, I promise I’ll come back as Heisenberg!”